Foam party kills in Turkey

Posted by Ruth Miller on Fri 1st August 2008 at 06:00 AM, Filed in Travel News

I was surprised and saddened to hear that a foam party in Turkey resulted in the deaths of three tourists.

The three people, included two Israeli tourists, who were accidentally electrocuted at the foam party in a luxury hotel in southern Turkey, the Anatolian Agency reported on Wednesday.

Apparently, the power leak that caused the deaths occurred when the foam machine operator slid and fell, dropping the device, Mehmet Yilmaz, manager of the five-star hotel in the southern province of Antalya, the agency said.

I think this incident throws up an important point. Are safety standards the same at popular tourist destinations as they are at home. The answer is quite blatantly no. Although, poor safety regulations do not appear to have played a part in this incident, you do wonder if things would have been conducted differently elsewhere.

One of the saddest stories of recent years was a couple who lost there two children to carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty boiler. The boiler had not been serviced or checked for some time. Under UK regulations boilers in rented accommodation have to undergo regular safety certification.

I suppose the point here, is that you need to be vigilant to slack safety standards. In the case of carbon monoxide, you can buy testers for a few pounds. In as far as foam party’s, water skiing, jet skiing, para sailing, scuba diving etc - just be aware of potential dangers like no certification, poor equipment and such like.

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